I really wish there were more experiments in politics, but most people are unwilling to tolerate them.
In theory different countries could try different policies and see what the outcomes are. Within countries like the United States and Spain where lots of power is devolved to local authorities, even better experiments can be run over very similar populations.
In theory this could work great. One place tries one policy. Another tries another. After 10 years or so, everyone will know which policy worked better, and other places can adopt the better policy, then run more experiments.
The problem, though, is that many people aren’t will to let others run experiments. They’re happy to run local “experiments” of adopting a policy they like, but want to prohibit other countries from running experiments they dislike. Many political battles happen because there’s a lack of willingness to leave people in other jurisdictions alone to try their own policies.
Now, yes, we should try to enforce bans on some policies due to their large negative externalities. That’s why we collaborate to ban the spread of nuclear weapons, to mitigate climate change, etc. But many other policies have few externalities, yet because those policies make us uncomfortable, so we’re unwilling to let people experiment.
I suspect, like many things in politics, that the main issue here is domestic politics more than foreign affairs.
If you’ve ever compared election results between single and multi-member systems, you’ll have noticed a trend. Even if via first preference count, a minor party seems to best represent a significant chunk of the population, unless they’re geographically concentrated you can expect them to pick up on the order of ~0 seats.
Similarly, if we’re not going to abandon democratic principles, we should probably have the consent of the majority in an area before we perform an experiment on them. Problem with this is that even if world/country wide there’s a quorum of people who would consent to a given experiment, it’s highly unlikely that they all live in the same place.
While something like a Schengen area might in principle alleviate some of these concerns, it introduces two main additional ones:
1) Does your experiment actually improve society? Or does it just attract the types of people who improve society themselves? 2) Most people aren’t a big fan of being told they have to move cities/countries to continue living their lifestyle. I suspect that Lesswrong users as a cohort undervalue stability relative to the rest of the population.
I really wish there were more experiments in politics, but most people are unwilling to tolerate them.
In theory different countries could try different policies and see what the outcomes are. Within countries like the United States and Spain where lots of power is devolved to local authorities, even better experiments can be run over very similar populations.
In theory this could work great. One place tries one policy. Another tries another. After 10 years or so, everyone will know which policy worked better, and other places can adopt the better policy, then run more experiments.
The problem, though, is that many people aren’t will to let others run experiments. They’re happy to run local “experiments” of adopting a policy they like, but want to prohibit other countries from running experiments they dislike. Many political battles happen because there’s a lack of willingness to leave people in other jurisdictions alone to try their own policies.
Now, yes, we should try to enforce bans on some policies due to their large negative externalities. That’s why we collaborate to ban the spread of nuclear weapons, to mitigate climate change, etc. But many other policies have few externalities, yet because those policies make us uncomfortable, so we’re unwilling to let people experiment.
I suspect, like many things in politics, that the main issue here is domestic politics more than foreign affairs.
If you’ve ever compared election results between single and multi-member systems, you’ll have noticed a trend. Even if via first preference count, a minor party seems to best represent a significant chunk of the population, unless they’re geographically concentrated you can expect them to pick up on the order of ~0 seats.
Similarly, if we’re not going to abandon democratic principles, we should probably have the consent of the majority in an area before we perform an experiment on them. Problem with this is that even if world/country wide there’s a quorum of people who would consent to a given experiment, it’s highly unlikely that they all live in the same place.
While something like a Schengen area might in principle alleviate some of these concerns, it introduces two main additional ones:
1) Does your experiment actually improve society? Or does it just attract the types of people who improve society themselves?
2) Most people aren’t a big fan of being told they have to move cities/countries to continue living their lifestyle. I suspect that Lesswrong users as a cohort undervalue stability relative to the rest of the population.